ART. VI. THE FIRST TWENTY YEARS OF THE REIGN OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

1. Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English Affairs existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice and in other Libraries of Northern Italy. Vol. VII. 1558-1580. Edited by the late RAWDON BROWN and the Rt. Hon G. CAVENDISH BENTINCK, M.P. Published by the authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. (London, 1890.)

2. Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs preserved principally in the Archives of Simancas. Vol. I. Elizabeth. 1558-1567. Edited by MARTIN A. S. HUME, F.R.Hist.S. Published by authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. (London, 1892.) Vol. II. Elizabeth. 1568-1579. (London, 1894.)

PROBABLY no one would ever have guessed beforehand how much light would be thrown upon English affairs by the publication of the ciphered and other despatches existing at Venice and Simancas. The documents at Simancas which were deciphered by the extraordinary diligence and sagacity of the late M. Bergenroth have enabled us to understand the diplomacy of the Courts of Henry VII. and of Ferdinand and Isabella, and to appreciate the position and the motives of the principal actors with far greater accuracy than was formerly possible, when historical research was mainly confined within the comparatively narrow limits of our own State Paper Office and the publications of English histories, either actually or nearly contemporaneous with the transactions recorded by them. The Venetian Archives have not, indeed, been so prolific of new information as the ciphers of Simancas, inasmuch as the republic was mostly concerned with commercial transactions, her business being to keep on the best of terms with the other governments of Europe, not to say with that of the Turk also, and her doge and senate having little or nothing to do with the matrimonial projects which occupy so large a space in the description of the movements and acts of the other Courts of Europe. But the Simancas records brought to light some very startling disclosures, and have materially altered the face of history, and also have destroyed many an hypothesis which had been grounded on

insufficient evidence. We need only here allude to the proposal of Henry VII. to marry his own widowed daughter-inlaw, whose second marriage with his younger son led to such important results, and to the revelations with regard to the virginity of Catharine of Aragon when she married Henry VIII., the proved genuineness of the disputed breve of Julius II., and other points which are detailed at length in the Preface to the Oxford Records of the Reformation. The earlier volumes of both these series had the advantage of excellent editors. M. Bergenroth's prefaces were brilliant pieces of writing, and although not always trustworthy as to his deductions from the facts detailed in the Records, nor absolutely free from errors in transcription, yet, upon the whole, the documents of the first two volumes, with their supplement, which were issued under his superintendence, have been represented with considerable accuracy. The Venetian papers too were produced by the late Mr. Rawdon Brown in a most scholarlike fashion. He was thoroughly acquainted with his subject, and did his work con amore, in a style which has scarcely been surpassed, or even equalled, by any of his colleagues and co-editors.

We wish we could speak as highly of the execution of the volumes which have been entrusted to their successors; but unfortunately, Don Pascual de Gayangos was specially ignorant of English affairs, and continually makes mistakes both of names and dates; and the volumes of the earlier Spanish series published by him do not nearly come up in point of execution to those issued by M. Bergenroth. Nor does the editorial skill of the late Mr. Cavendish Bentinck, whose name is associated with that of Mr. Rawdon Brown on the title page of the seventh volume of the Venetian series, at all equal that of his late colleague. He was not so familiar with the history of the period as his accomplished predecessor, and he especially fails from his want of Latin scholarship. This is evidenced in all his Latin extracts, and notably in the congratulatory verses at the coronation of the Queen, the mistakes of which might easily have been corrected from the copy printed in Holinshed. Many of the errors it would have been easy for any scholar to correct; but the editor has left the greater part of these uncorrected, whilst there are others he has corrected wrongly, and in one case has himself been guilty of an unpardonable blunder in attempting to fill up a pentameter verse:

'Nos monet effigie qua sit respublica quando
Corruit; et contra [quam] beata viget.'

It passes our comprehension how anyone who knew anything of the language could have missed seeing that the word in brackets should have been quando. A similar observation applies to the case of Major Hume, who has undertaken the new series of Simancas papers, which belong to the reign of Elizabeth, the titles of the first two volumes of which we have placed at the head of this article. Amongst other faults also which we find in the execution of these two volumes is the immense amount of errors of grammar and spelling, principally occurring in the second. We do not see what excuse can be made for such carelessness, as the type is very large and clear, and, as far as the compositor is concerned, has comparatively little fault to be found with it.

However, we have done with fault-finding, and now proceed to give some account of the matter contained in these three valuable volumes, premising only that the reader is not to expect any such startling revelations as have characterized some earlier volumes of the series. Nevertheless we shall find that they add to the information previously possessed as to the history of the first twenty years of the reign of Elizabeth, and perhaps may serve the purpose of reversing some conclusions which seemed to rest on tolerable evidence.

As we should have expected, the Spanish papers supply us with much more information than the Venetian, for, in addition to what has already been said, we have to notice that there was no Venetian ambassador accredited to the Court of Elizabeth, so that we have to depend upon what leaks out from the ambassadors of the republic at Paris and from other sources, as it were by accident, for tidings of what was going on in England. It is difficult to explain how the Venetian republic so persistently refused to send an ambassador to England when Elizabeth was for many years soliciting the Doge and Signory to send one. It was so manifestly the interest of Venice to stand well with all parties that it is the more remarkable, as they were the only European Power that refused to do so. Their extreme devotion to the Pope is hardly an adequate account of the matter; but it is plain that the Pope highly appreciated their conduct, for at the end of the year 1578, when he feared that they were going to reverse their decision, he sent a nuncio to dissuade them from it, who, upon finding there was no truth in the report, complimented the Doge, saying that Venice was a very mirror of religion, a city of the Gospel which, although

placed upon the waters, yet was set upon the hill, and from which all the world ought to take the rule and example of true religion. We shall see in the sequel that in one respect -viz. as regards ecclesiastical matters-the Venetian volume is of more value than the two which contain the Spanish papers.

One of the most salient features of these despatches is the timidity and habit of procrastination which characterize Philip of Spain; another is the extreme levity and carelessness of appearances in the conduct of Elizabeth. Neither of these points is altogether new to readers of history, but perhaps few will have realized how entirely successful the King of Spain might have been if, whilst the nation was still more Catholic than Protestant, he had decided on an invasion of England, which, after having been delayed thirty years, ended in the disastrous defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. And probably some may have gathered from the freely expressed opinions of the French and Spanish ambassadors that one who was so vain and frivolous and devoted to pleasure is not entitled to the full credit which English writers have assigned to Elizabeth of sagacity and diplomatic address, though no one will be disposed to dispute her being possessed of the self-will which distinguishes the whole of the Tudor dynasty. The editor of these volumes is not, indeed, altogether of this opinion; and yet, in the very first page of his Introduction, when descanting on the consummate statesmanship of the great Queen, he admits her marvellous good fortune in the game she was playing against the two European Powers which alone England had to fear, and, as he truly observes, her own fickleness and vacillation, which under other circumstances would have been ruinous, were really so many points in her favour.

The King of Spain, with all the assistance of the Duke of Alva and Granvelle, in spite of their far-reaching insight and fixed principles of action, was over and over again outwitted by Elizabeth's apparently purposeless vagaries. Without adopting the conclusion which, as we have said, many will draw from the perusal of these documents, the editor has stated in the strongest language the premises which seem to lead up to it. He says:

'Elizabeth's own ministers were often as much at a loss to follow or understand the meaning of her varying moods as were her rivals. Strong and steadfast Cecil even, heart-sick of her changeful frivolity, was many times on the point of laying down his heavy burden in 1 Ven. Cal. p. 589.

despair. The letters in the present volume abound with references which prove that the keen diplomatists who served the wily Philip were far more puzzled by the Queen's weakness than by her strength, and that the signal success that attended her policy, the splendid achievement of welding England into a united nation, capable of withstanding the world in arms, was not effected by Elizabeth's statecraft alone, great as that was, but also by the aid of the very qualities which her contemporaries looked upon as her principal reproach' (Introduction, vol. i. p. ii).

We shall restrict our comments on these two volumes for the most part to these two particulars, and shall leave our readers to gain whatever information they may be able as to the diplomatic relations of Spain and England from Major Hume's able Introductions. And first we may observe that, as regards Elizabeth's intention to accept any of the numerous suitors for her hand whose offers she had the great satisfaction of declining, we think these papers make it abundantly evident that, excepting in the case of Robert Dudley, who was afterwards better known as Earl of Leicester, she never intended to marry at all, and in this matter managed to deceive not only her own ministers but all the world beside, with the single exception of the King of Spain, who, after her refusing to accept her late sister's husband and the failure of his project to get her to marry Dudley and restore the ancient faith, is persistent in his assertion of his belief in this. This, however, was not, at the beginning of the reign, the opinion of Paulo Tiepolo, the Venetian ambassador at Brussels. In a valuable ciphered despatch of April 23, 1559, he reports to the Doge and Senate that the Queen was so dissatisfied with the conclusion of the peace between France and Spain, and the promised alliance of Philip with Elizabeth of France, that she would gladly, if she could, break it up, and was then offering through the Count de Feria her acceptance of whatever conditions might please the King of Spain, provided she became his wife. On May 4 he writes that the French had been the means of removing Count de Feria from England,

'where he had authority to say and remind her of what they did not wish, as they seem to have thought that the Queen, both in religion. and in matrimony, might the more easily rush headlong into some most fatal course, as it is affirmed that by Count de Feria's advice she abstained from taking the title of Head of the Church and from many other evil ideas which she might have already carried into effect' (p. 82).

The account given by Don Diego Guzman de Silva of